Twitter submits stock market papers

Twitter hopes to raise one billion US dollars by floating on the stock market

Twitter hopes to raise one billion US dollars (£618.9 million) by floating on the stock market, official paperwork has revealed.

The company behind the global social network submitted its initial public offering (IPO) documents in the US, which outline its plans for the highly anticipated flotation and gives a glimpse into its finances.

Twitter said its site has 200 million monthly active users who produce 500 million tweets every day, and described itself using the catchlines: "Public. Real-Time. Conversational. Distributed."

It said it believes it can generate revenue through advertising and unveiled plans to list its common stock under the symbol "TWTR".

Although the company revealed it has incurred eye-watering operational losses - to the tune of 419 million US dollars (£259 million) - it said its revenue has grown rapidly and expects that growth to continue.

Twitter said it believed it can make money from advertising, showing an increase in advertising revenue from last year to this year.

It said in the paperwork : "In the three months ended June 30, 2013, our advertising revenue per timeline view was 80 cents, which represents a 26% increase from the three months ended June 30, 2012.

"In the three months ended June 30, 2013, our advertising revenue per timeline view in the United States was 2.17 dollars and our advertising revenue per timeline view in the rest of the world was 30 cents, which represent increases of 26% and 111% from the three months ended June 30, 2012, respectively."

Turning to its losses, it said in the documentation: " Since our inception, we have incurred significant operating losses, and, as of June 30, 2013, we had an accumulated deficit of 418.6 million dollars (£259 million).

"Although our revenue has grown rapidly, increasing from 28.3 million US dollars (£17.5 million) in 2010 to 316.9 million US dollars (£196 million) in 2012, we expect that our revenue growth rate will slow in the future as a result of a variety of factors, including the gradual slow down in the growth rate of our user base."